THE TRADITIONAL VERSION:
The ant toils endlessly in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores his winter supplies.
The grasshopper watches in amusement, proclaiming the ant to be a fool. He laughs, cavorts, and lazes the summer away, frivolously dismissing the coming threat of winter.
Winter inevitably arrives, and the ant is warm, dry, and well-fed. The grasshopper, with no food or shelter, dies in the cold.
THE CONTEMPORARY (AND OF COURSE, POLITICALLY CORRECT) VERSION:
The ant toils endlessly in the withering heat, all summer long. He builds his house and stores his winter supplies.
The grasshopper watches in amusement, proclaiming the ant to be a fool. He laughs, cavorts, and lazes the summer away, frivolously dismissing the coming threat of winter.
Winter inevitably arrives, and the ant is warm, dry, and well-fed. The shivering, emaciated grasshopper stages a press conference. He demands to know why the ant should be permitted to be warm, secure, and well-fed, while others have no food or shelter.
CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN air videos of the ant in his warm, dry home; behind the ant is his table, well-laden with food. The video is followed by footage of hundreds of starving, frozen grasshoppers.
The nation is stunned by the contrast. "Why", the commentators implore, "in a country so full of wealth and opportunity, is this grasshopper suffering such dire straits?" "Bush did it!!!", the Democratic Party cadre triumphantly proclaims to all who can hear.
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper. The nation weeps in shame as Kermit and the grasshopper sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green". Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton lead a march in front of the ant's house, where the news stations film the protesters singing "We Shall Overcome". Jesse then leads the group in prayer, reminding the protesters to contribute generously to his group so that he can "continue the fight" for grasshoppers everywhere.
Ted Kennedy and John Kerry proclaim, in an interview with Tom Brokaw, that Bush has permitted the ant to prosper from the tireless efforts of the poor grasshopper, who is being deprived of the fruits of his labor. They call for an immediate tax hike so that the ant will be forced to pay "his fair share" for the grasshopper's support. The EEOC then drafts the "Economic Equity for Grasshoppers Act", retroactive to the beginning of the previous summer. Hillary the Hun and the ACLU get Hillary's old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a discrimination suit against the ant. The case is tried in Federal Court, with a jury comprised exclusively of unemployed welfare recipients. Naturally, the grasshopper prevails.
The ant is then heavily fined for failing to hire the appropriate ratio of grasshoppers to build his house and store his winter supplies. After the fine and the lawsuit, the ant has nothing left with which to pay his retroactive taxes, and the government seizes his house and all of his assets, leaving the ant broke, homeless, and starting all over.
As the story draws to a close, we see the grasshopper finishing the last of the ant's stored food. The grasshopper's government housing (the house the ant built) is crumbling around him from lack of maintenance because Bush won't repair it fast enough to suit the ant (who can't find a job that pays enough to suit him). The ant has disappeared into the snow. The grasshopper is found dead, from malnutrition and a drug overdose. The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a band of spiders, who terrorize the once-peaceful neighborhood......................................
